SOUTH BEND — Officials from multiple agencies met with Washington State 19th Legislative District Reps. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) and Joel McEntire (R-Cathlamet) last month to talk about acquiring funding to improve overall public safety.

The duo are working on acquiring funds so the Pacific County 911 Communications Center (PacCom) and emergency responders can upgrade to a Simulcast system. The system would be a step towards closing a historical gap in radio coverage.

Radio coverage has been a significant complaint amongst emergency responders within Pacific County for decades. Responders have been plagued in parts of the county that are so remote that little to no radio signal is available.

In fact, there are situations regularly — particularly for the Pacific County Sheriff’s Office — when deputies respond to remote areas. The signal to radio towers is so dismal that deputies’ portable radios sometimes cannot reach the towers, meaning they have to use their vehicles’ mobile radio instead.

The issue creates a significant safety concern because if, for example, a deputy was in a fight for their life and they were calling out for help on their portable radio, no one might be able to hear them and know they needed help.

Or in a scenario when they are not actively in need of assistance, the situation could become serious in a moment. This could involve a deputy responding to a domestic violence incident — alone — but after arriving can’t use their radio to reach dispatchers to run the involved parties’ names. To get in touch with dispatch, the deputy would have to walk to their vehicle and use their mobile radio to try to make the transmission, potentially taking an officer’s attention away from the situation. It also provides a suspect ample time to formulate and initiate an attack on a victim or the deputy.

It is not hard to put into perspective how bad the radio issue is in the county. Anyone who listens to the radio channels in the north county region can attest it’s problematic. Listeners can at times hear the Mason County 911 Communications Center (MaceCom) more clearly than a fire crew just down the street.

“I think that it’s significantly important, that communication is the most important thing for first responders,” PacCom Director Cait Grant said. “When it comes to public safety alone, we have to communicate and right now we are struggling, and this is supposed to significantly increase communication [abilities].”

MaceCom and PacCom have the same frequency for emergency medical services. Up until this year, north and south Pacific County operated EMS on the same frequency only separated by operational towers.

The separation doesn’t change the fact that MaceCom’s transmissions regularly overlap with the north county EMS transmissions. In fact, PacCom has regular issues with transmitting to fire crews and vice versa when MaceCom is transmitting at the same time.

Little can be done about the overlapping of frequencies without changing to an entirely new frequency, which would create another obstacle.

Grant has formulated a plan to address the radio coverage issues with a proposal to acquire $450,000 in funding to move the county to a Simulcast radio system, which would transmit radio communications over multiple radio towers simultaneously.

According to a presentation by Grant, the system would allow the entire county to be covered in three distinct regions, which would hopefully close the gaps. It is the first phase of the plan — to try Simulcast and see how big of a difference it can make.

The second phase of the plan, if it doesn’t significantly or all together close the gaps, is to seek additional funding to install new tower infrastructure that could cost upward of $1 million.

State and federal grants could be applied for to cover the costs, or the county could seek increasing the 0.1% sales tax that goes to EMS to 0.2% — which would keep the tax at pennies to a dollar.

If Simulcast doesn’t fix the issue and the towers are needed, Grant foresees going in on a partnership — particularly with Pacific County PUD No. 2 — and splitting the costs of installing the infrastructure up to 50% each.

“Or we could go on one of PUD’s current towers and add equipment there,” Grant said.

Walsh said he plans to work in 2026 to secure the funding.